


Male Me Marem Putatis

by Caepio



Category: Ancient History RPF, Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF, Julius Caesar - Shakespeare
Genre: Age Difference, Bad Latin Words, Drugs, Gossip, Growing Up Together, I'm a little too fond of promises getting broken, M/M, Makeshift Surgery, Minor age difference, Occasional Historical Accuracy, Period Typical Attitudes, The rumors are true, Traumatic Childhoods, battlefield injuries, fear of invasive surgery, masculinity TM, mentioned - Freeform, people not being their best selves, teenagers being yikes, uncomfortable family dynamics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2020-02-29 08:22:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18774865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caepio/pseuds/Caepio
Summary: When they were young, Antony and Brutus were friends.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [himbostratus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/himbostratus/gifts).



> Catullus, Carmen 16:
> 
> Vos quod milia multa basiorum legistis, male me marem putatis?
> 
> Do you think, because you've read about my countless kisses, I'm less of a man?

They had a deal.

When they were young. When they were children. 

“If anyone takes home from you, I’ll give it back. If anyone pronounces that interdiction of water and fire, I’ll light the candle. I’ll go to the well. I’ll let you in the door.”

It was a child’s pact. A pact that children make when exile is a commonplace disaster. A pact made when home is simple.

They were younger then. And kind to each other. They didn’t know each other, then. They didn't know themselves. And if their promise bore a smiling resemblance to a marriage vow, just as well. Faked marriages, and playing house in the garden, and grinning at each other from around the backs of their elders were a part, the only innocent part really, of their young lives. 

Brutus was older than Antony. A little. 

A little in childhood means a lot. 

Perhaps he liked Antony because he was younger. Perhaps he liked that with him he could act younger and have it be no disgrace. Antony wasn’t Cassius. Antony wouldn’t admonish him for innocence or joy. Age was an act. Age was something you pretended till time worked on you and made it real. 

They were friends for as long as could be expected. Till Brutus was 8, maybe 9.  
Until Brutus’ father died. 

And even then, for a time, they kept up a kind of friendship. A strange, illusive, unpredictable connection. They still remembered what it was like to be childish and unconcerned. 

Then Brutus was 13, head buried in his books, sometimes willingly, sometimes by force. He was rarely at home. Away at school, staying with relatives. His bedroom window was usually dark. 

Antony at 11 was unparented, lawless. He’d wander the streets at all hours, sometimes alone, sometimes with his brothers. Late at night, he’d sneak over the wall and up to Brutus’ window, he’d lean over the sill, feet kicking a rhythm against the wall, talking rapidly, in pleb rhythms and accents that Brutus didn’t always understand. Like a report from a foreign country, from a traveler whose language is no longer just his native tongue. Antony was xenotic and strange. There was a gulf widening between them - as Antony chattered on the windowsill, voice carrying over the books, and translations, and bad, childish poetry that covered Brutus’ desk - But that gulf was still hidden by the small field of shared interests they’d always had. 

“I want to go to Athens.” Antony would say. And Brutus would agree.

“Tell me if you like how I’m translating this line from the Iliad…” Brutus would say, and Antony would drop down into his room, sprawl out on his bed and listen. 

When they were younger, they used to play at the Iliad, fighting over who got to play Achilles. Wrestling for it. Sometimes Brutus won. Usually Antony did. Brutus got good at being Diomedes, Odysseus, Patroklos.

They didn’t talk about the other things they really shared. Executed relatives. Absent fathers. They didn’t say- “We have to learn to take what we want, or it will be taken from us.” It was a truth they both knew, but didn’t speak. They each had their own ways of learning that skill, some more direct than others. 

Perhaps if they’d talked of that openly, they’d have found themselves on the same side. But they had other teachers, other goals, and childhood was rapidly closing behind them. 

Eventually, there came a Last Night for that. Though neither of them knew it, or noticed. Brutus left, for two years, and when he came back, neither of them were children anymore. 

Antony was 15, suddenly, startlingly tall, shoulders broadening, voice deepening. He could pass for 20, but no one who knew him would ascribe to him that maturity.

Brutus was 17, but aiming at 30 and _applauded_ for it. He didn’t really look 17. Or 30. Or any age at all sometimes. He was still pale and strange, and used to men saying - “just like your mother” never “like your father”. 

That summer the rumours started. Antony seemed to be everywhere at once, in every worst corner of the city, in every place he shouldn’t be. Brutus heard stories about him as far as Ephesos. 

Usually it was Cassius narrating. “Heard he bribed a priest to marry him to another man. Heard he was dressed as the bride. Heard he’s not just _playing_ at it.” 

Brutus would listen, and say nothing. 

“Didn’t you used to be friendly with him?” Cassius would ask. 

“Not like that.” Brutus would say, sharp and derisive. “Didn’t really know him at all. He was just a kid.” 

“Sounds like he’s still pretty νηπιοσ.” 

Brutus didn't believe the rumours at first, whatever he said. He was still picturing the laughing boy he’d last seen sitting on his floor, looking at Brutus’ poetry, too innocent to mock. 

Brutus was older than Antony; Antony, couldn’t _possibly_ be this dissolute legend aiming at very adult disasters. 

But the stories piled up. And Brutus began to listen to the voices of the men around him, men he revered, men he aspired to compete with. 

“He’s heading for disaster.”

“That boy - He’s wasting himself.”

“He’ll never be a man.” 

“ _Cinaedus._ Lacking in virility.” 

_Tunic too short, hair too long, colours too extravagant, fabric too sheer_.

Brutus took note. 

Brutus began to be very careful with his clothes. Very precise in everything he did. 

He was beginning to become very aware of what Being A Man meant. And it was not Antony. It was not running ragged till 3 am, over sexed and driven only by the last cup of wine. There was a balance. There was a line. He couldn’t always tell you what it _was_ , but he’d gotten very good at seeing what it _Wasn’t_ , and Antony was the eidolon of that effeminacy.


	2. Chapter 2

Brutus came back to Rome not long before Antony’s 16th birthday. He would be leaving again soon, for Athens. But for a month, for a few weeks, he could be home.

His bedroom didn’t feel like his anymore. It felt like it belonged to someone else. He went through his desk drawers, pulling out his stumbling attempts at poetry. He read some of them, stacked the rest, and then, all at once, dropped them in the kitchen hearth and let them burn. Like a girl before her wedding, burning up her childhood so she can _get on with it_. He didn’t consider the parallel, looking up at the little, smoke stained Lares and silently making his prayer:- Let me come home. Let it be home when I come back. Give me the strength for that kind of genius.

He couldn’t live off his mother’s hearth for ever.

Bags packed. 

Plans made.

All the correct observances adhered to.

The last night Brutus spent in Rome, he went night wandering. 

He left the house as the sun was sinking. He walked down through the Capitol as the lamps were being lit, the warm glow of homes and hearths sparking up all across the city. _You could walk forever here, and not run out of space,_ he thought. The streets were strange and crooked, little demes to themselves, every crossroads god the protector of a different little country. 

He wandered out of his usual spheres, down along the Tiber, till he reached the Aventine, littered with its cults and foreigner’s cants. It grew darker. It got louder. Brutus tossed his head back, anonymous in a childhood lacerna, daring comment, his uncle’s voice echoing, _“You don’t belong here.”_  
He didn’t care. _It doesn't matter_ , he thought. _What matters is what belongs to me. This is my city. This is my home. I can go where I want. Have what I want. I can be that arrogant._

Perhaps he was looking for Antony. Perhaps he even admitted this to himself. Perhaps a gossip-addicted part of him still doubted what he heard and wanted to _see_ that it was true.

Late, past midnight maybe, when his feet had hit that insomniac’s rhythm and he’d begun to hypnotically obsess over the patterns in the cobblestones, the way the light fell out of people’s windows, he found Antony. The back corner of a tavern - perhaps still on the Aventine. Brutus could have wandered straight round the Quirinal and not noticed at that point. 

Brutus wandered in out of the night, blinking at the brightness. He sat down out of the way and stared around him, adjusting to the noise, the smell. He heard loud laughter, just out of sight, and turned to look, craning his neck, catching glimpses as people moved out of the way between him and whoever was making that much noise. It was Antony- Or rather, it was Antony who was _causing_ the laughter. There was a man, older than Antony, older than Brutus, sitting in the corner, and Antony was almost in his _lap_. He had his arms around the man's neck and he was leaning back, grinning at someone over his shoulder. 

Brutus couldn’t see, but he could tell that Antony’s legs had to be wrapped around that other man’s waist. The man had his arm around him, hand splayed across his spine, and as Brutus watched he wrapped his fingers through Antony’s hair and pulled Antony into a heated kiss. 

Brutus stood up without realising it, staring.

Antony wrapped his other arm around the man’s shoulders, arching into his embrace. He was kissing down Antony’s neck, Antony’s eyes were closed. The man bit down on Antony’s collarbone and he gasped, laughing out a sound halfway between delight and pain.  
Brutus was frozen. He couldn’t move, couldn’t say anything.

Antony pulled away from the man after a moment, and as he turned he caught Brutus’ eye across the room. There was a brief second that they stared at each other, then someone stepped inbetween their line of sight and Brutus, for the first time that night, ran. 

He made it perhaps two streets towards home before Antony caught up with him, running after him at full tilt, fast and lithe, slipping easily between the crowd. He grabbed Brutus by the arm and yanked him into an alleyway, out of sight of the street. He was still laughing, breathless. “It _is_ you. I thought you were in Ephesos-“

“I was-“

“Why did you run? What the hell was that? What are you even doing here?” He was grinning - golden, tall, and clearly not done growing. “Didn’t think this was _your kind of thing_.”

“ _It’s not._ ” Brutus stared at him, unable to stop seeing the moment Antony had arched against the other man, as if he liked it, as if he enjoyed it, as if there was some kind of _excellence_ to be had there, something to _prove_. Then, silent too long, he said, idiotically, “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“Athens?” Childhood echo in his voice, dreaming of the palaestra the way Brutus imagined the Academy.

Antony was still holding his arm, Brutus pulled away, “Let go, alright?” 

Antony stepped away slightly, looking Brutus up and down. “You’ve grown, you know that?” He started to say, but at the same time Brutus asked:- 

“Why were you with him?”

“Curio?”

“If that’s the man you were with… Yes. _Curio._ ”

Antony smiled slightly, something unfamiliar and challenging in the twist of his mouth, like he’d heard the tone in Brutus voice before, elsewhere, and had his response practiced, “Just having a little fun. Wasn’t that obvious?”

“ _Very._ ” He was thinking- You don’t look like Antony. You don’t sound like him. Antony doesn't hate the world. Antony doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone. 

“You been staying with your uncle again?” Antony asked, " _You sound just like him._ ”

Brutus looked away, down the darkened alley. Someone ran by at the other end, shouting. 

“You’re too obvious.” He said, a little too quickly, like he was trying to get through the words before Antony could mock them. “You should be more careful. If that’s your idea of fun you shouldn’t be so public.”

“ _Why not?_ ” 

“People talk.”

“I like when they talk.”

“It’s going to fuck you over later.”

“It hasn’t fucked Caesar over.” Antony had an eyebrow raised, head tilted to one side, flippant and confident. 

Brutus didn’t want to talk about Caesar. He saw too much of Caesar in his own home - Outside his mother’s door, at the dinner table, slipping out the garden gate in the morning.

“He’s not _fucking men in taverns._ ” Brutus hissed. “Rumour’s not the same thing as fact.”

“Close enough.” Antony threw his head back, squaring his shoulders. Brutus felt suddenly, acutely aware of the differences between them, aware of the darkness of the alleyway and their relative isolation. “I don’t care what people say. I don’t care what people see.” Antony said. “The things I want- No one’s going to give them to me. I’ll have to take them either way. Might as well have a little fun while I'm at it.”

“Why can’t you just fuck women?”

“ _I do that too._ "

“Why him?”

Antony shrugged, “He knows what he’s doing. He’s a good time.” He wasn’t looking at Brutus.

“Are you in love with him?”

“ _No._ ”

“I heard a rumour you’d faked a marriage.”

Antony laughed, light and easy. “Don’t be stupid.”

“ _I’m_ not the one being stupid.”

"You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“ _Yes._ I do.”

“Because your uncle talks about it over dinner? Because it isn’t how _your family_ does things?” Antony broke off, but it sounded as if he had more to say. As if he’d stopped himself before going too far. 

“It isn’t-” Brutus tensed, hardly aware of where his rising anger was coming from, “No one, no respectable person, does things like that. It’s not-” He looked up at Antony, at his forced, fighting glare, the audacious, challenging tilt of his head. “Why can’t you just be a _man_?”

“ _What did you say?_ ” Antony’s eyes had gone dark and dangerous, hands clenched at his side. 

Brutus watched him warily for a moment, neither of them breathing.

“I meant-”

Antony stepped closer to him, uncomfortably close, threatening, “ _No._ I know what you meant.”

“ _Fine._ ” Brutus spat, refusing to back down, “ _Maybe I did_.” He straightened a little self-consciously, trying to vie with Antony for height. “You've heard it before, haven’t you? I didn’t used to believe what everyone was saying. _I do now._ ”

“ _Not everyone._ ”

“Don’t you want to prove them wrong?”

“Not really _no_.”

“Don’t you want to prove you’re worth something?” 

“Following their rules proves _nothing_.”

“ _They’re rules for a reason_. Those rules are how you become a man.”

“How do you know what being a man is? You’re a _child_. A copycat. At least I’m my own man, at least-”

“Your own man?” Brutus laughed, harsh and loud, “You think this makes you a man? You’re playing a _woman._ ” He felt out of control, like something had grabbed hold of him and he couldn’t stop himself, a heated, combative energy rushing under his skin. He heard himself saying- “Maybe that’s all you’re good for. Is that why you do it? You don’t have virility so you let other men sodomize you?”

Antony rammed Brutus into the wall, one hand at his throat, body pressed against his, “Don’t you fucking dare. You don’t know what you’re talking about-”

“ _Yes I do._ I’m not stupid. I saw what you were doing in there, I hear what people say - You’re _pathetic_.” 

Antony’s grip tightened, just enough that Brutus couldn’t breathe. “ _I’m_ pathetic?” He leaned in, his lips brushing against Brutus’ ear, speaking in a voice Brutus had never heard from him before, “Want to see how fast I could get you to bend over for me? Want to see how long you'd last if I’m fucking you?” Brutus could feel Antony’s lips twisting into some approximation of a smile against the ridge of his ear and then he bit down hard.

Brutus yelped, his voice breaking. He kneed Antony in the stomach and shoved him away, cursing. “ _What the fuck are you doing?_ ”

“ _Come on._ I know you have it in you- Everyone says you’re just like your mother. _Your mother’s a whore._ ” 

Brutus slammed into Antony, knocking him down. They both fell to the ground, and Antony punched Brutus in the mouth. Brutus’ head spun, vision blacking out for a second. He could taste blood. He grabbed Antony’s hair, _too long, too bright,_ and yanked his head back, hard. Antony grabbed Brutus’ other arm, flipping him over, trying to pin him down, kneeling over him, holding him down as he twisted, unrelenting, immovable, but Brutus let go of his grip on his hair and wrenched his knife free from his belt, pressing it against Antony’s ribs. Antony went still.

For a moment, they just stared at each other, both a little surprised, eyes wide in the dark.

“You going to stab me, Brutus?” Antony asked. He was still breathing heavily, but the look in his eyes had cooled to something appraising. _You're not what I thought you were either._

“If you don’t _get off of me._ ”

Antony laughed. It was an adult laugh. Deep, and cynical, and mocking. “I could go tell your uncle, you know…”

“ _Tell him what?_ ”

“That I held you down, threatened to fuck you, and you _liked it._ ”

“What the fuck do you mean?”

Antony grinned, letting go of Brutus’ wrist, and shifting back a little. “You’re _hard._ ”

Brutus shoved him off, scrambling to his feet, “ _You’re sick._ ”

“You’re the one getting off on this.”

“I’m not-“

“No, you’re right. But _you will later._ ”

“Will _what?_ Think about _you_ fucking _me_? No. _That_ won’t be what I’m thinking about.”

Antony didn’t move, smirking up at him. “Fine. Have it your way. _Next time maybe._ You might learn a few things in Athens.”

Brutus didn’t respond. He sheathed his knife. He breathed, trying to ignore his blood pounding, his jaw aching, the fact that Antony was right and he _was_ very hard.

Antony stood up, straightening his clothes - _too short, too colourful, too attracting_ \- with a kind of precise insouciance Brutus strongly suspected was practiced.

He looked up at Brutus, smiling pleasantly, “Well? You just going to stand there?”

Brutus’ muscles tensed before he even made up his mind to move. He stepped in close to Antony, hands on his shoulders, and pushed him back against the wall. 

“ _Tāce._ ”

Antony didn’t resist, a maddening smirk on his lips. Brutus slid a hand around the back of his head, fingers knotted in his hair almost as fiercely as when they'd been fighting, and - resenting the hell out of the difference in their heights - he kissed him. A little too hard, a little too biting, a little too much like he had something to prove. 

_I’m enough of a man to win this fight. Enough of a man to make you kneel for me. Enough of a man to **take what I want**._

Antony’s mouth was sharp and bitter with blood.

Brutus bit at Antony’s lower lip, his quiet moan almost making Brutus lose what little control he had left. He felt Antony’s hands on his hips, drawing him closer, and he pulled away, nipping sharply at Antony’s ear like Antony had done before, caustically taunting, “ _Cinaedus_.”

And then he stepped away, and stalked off down the alleyway, refusing to look back. 

_I want what men want._

_I can **control** what I want. _

_I’m a better man than **you.** ___


	3. 58 BC

Summer in Athens.

Antony is on the run from Rome.

So is Brutus.

They have their reasons. 

\-- Creditors 

\-- Expectations 

\-- A Lover’s Bad Reputation 

\-- A Mother’s Bad Reputation 

They’re in their early 20s. They’re not children anymore. They both know what it’s like to be held to account for other people’s faults as well as their own.

Brutus spends his days in the Academy olive groves, hiding in the shadows with friends he’s already made, people who know him and _don’t know his mother._

Antony continues. As he always has done. A different city - The same habits. A clean slate (almost) - A similar crowd. 

They do not meet. Except once, nearly, in the street near the palaestra. 

They catch each other’s eyes, across the street. Neither stops walking. Brutus is with a crowd of people, sycophantic types. Half a street away he turns and shouts - clear across everyone:

“Why aren’t your creditors satisfied? Didn’t you fuck them well enough?” 

Brutus' voice carries, loud and graceless, for all his faddish Athenian accent. A moment of Roman coarseness breaking the sophisticated facade, attacking Antony on his own terms, in an Aventine graffiti voice.

Perhaps it was prompted by someone in his group. Perhaps he thought Antony was going to say something and wanted to get a word in first. Brutus had already tensed, ready for a response:

_You look so much like your mother, does Caesar ever get confused?_

or

_When he’s done with your mother, does he move on to your sisters?_

or

_Always thought you were a bastard - I guess we have proof now._

But Antony is silent. He’s been awake for two straight days, high, drunk, broke again.

Brutus’ friends laugh, hysterical at his second rate joke. Antony doesn’t stop walking. The echo of their amusement follows him long after the sound has died out.

Brutus turns his head, watching Antony disappear down a side street, losing the thread of the jokes piling on top of his. He’s silent for a while after that, the conversation faltering around his absence. He stops paying attention. He’s thinking about the hazy, half stumble of Antony’s stride. His pavement focussed gaze. 

When he and Antony were children, they’d talk about the places they wanted to see. They’d picture themselves in Athens. They’d imagine they were there together. What would they see? What would they say? Would it be better than home?

Athens isn’t always what they thought it would be.

It doesn’t matter. They’ve grown up.

They have other dreams now.


	4. 49 BC

“Well? What do you want then?” Brutus is standing in the doorway of Antony’s study, tone tightly controlled, preemptive. 

There’s smoke in the streets. A hideous, forced quiet clamped down on the city. They’d started throwing men off the rock two days before.

Antony looks older than Brutus, a little. The weight of an ill-fitted responsibility bearing down. There’s a still livid scar running up his right arm, beneath the sleeve of his tunic - remnant of a Gallic spear. 

Brutus doesn’t fully step into the room, his spine so straight it looks painful.

Ten years since that day in Athens. Antony went to war. Brutus made a fortune.  
Their reputations have developed a strange parity:-

Antony is a rake. An untrustworthy, riotous, _dangerous_ , nuisance to the city.  
With one exception: He is _excellent_ at war. Virtuous on the field.

Brutus is exactly what he should be:  
He’s eloquent, he’s vehement, he’s honourable. The pride of his family, his friends, his city.  
_With one exception:_ He is avaricious. Immoral where money is concerned.

They each have their exceptions.  
The majority wishes the exceptions did not exist. 

Brutus stands, ill at ease, at the edge of the room. His clothes are precise. He keeps to the shadows.  
Antony shoves the papers away from him, throwing his stylus down. His head is aching, the letters displacing on the page before his eyes. “Why are you here?”

“You _summoned_ me.” Brutus says, staring at the mess of papers.

Antony leans back in his chair, watching him, gathering his thoughts. “I asked for you a week ago.” A great deal has happened in the last week.

“Well.” Brutus’ eyes dart up and then he looks somewhere else, as if he hadn’t meant to change his focus, “I’ve been away.”

There are voices in the hall. In the street outside someone’s shouting. Scent of smoke on the breeze.

“Where were you?”

“The coast.”

“Why?”

Brutus looks up, dry and suddenly provoking. “I heard _you_ were here.”

Antony fidgets with the stylus, spinning it back and forth on the table until it skitters over the edge. Brutus watches it fall, inscrutable.

“Are you going to be a problem?” Antony asks. 

Brutus laughs sharply, eyes widening, “A problem?”

“You have a reputation.”

“For what?”

“Being unpredictable.”

“That’s _your_ metier.”

Antony shrugs, unconcerned. “Fine.” 

Brutus examines Antony’s expression like he’s looking for a fault, an inconsistency. “Who says I’m unpredictable?” 

“People.”

“ _People?_ ”

“No one knows what you want.”

“ _Yes, they do._ ”

“Really?”

Brutus flushes slightly, perhaps in anger. “If they don’t, then they don’t know me.”

Antony stands up and Brutus tenses, but he doesn't move. Antony leans against the edge of his desk. “ _I asked for you a week ago._ ” He repeats.

“I know.”

“Why didn’t you come?”

Brutus looks away, out the window. He keeps his back to the wall. Antony thinks he’s unusually dressed. Darker tones than usual. A lack of embroidery. Less richness of fabric and colour.

“I was preoccupied.” Brutus says, finally. 

Antony watches him narrowly, fingers curled around the edge of the desk, “Was Cicero with you?”

Brutus says nothing.

“What did he think? Did he tell you to not to come?” Antony laughs, "Goddamn coward - leaving when he did. He _should_ be scared.”

Brutus’ expression doesn’t change. He holds Antony’s gaze till Antony, suddenly discomfited, looks away. 

“That’s what he told me.” Brutus says, then, aping an unctuous tone, “ _Be afraid._ ”

“Did he say anything else?”

“Not really. _Watch out. **Be scared.**_ ”

“Why are you here then?”

“I’m not.”

“Not afraid?” Antony looks at him sharply, something a little like disappointment in the twist of his mouth. “Why not?” 

Brutus shrugs, but he steps farther into the room, pulling out a chair and sitting down with a precise kind of ease. 

“Maybe I think you _are_ a problem.” Antony challenges.

Brutus smiles slightly, coldly. “No you don’t.” He straightens the fold of his cloak where it falls over his arm. “I’ve seen how you deal with problems.”

“Maybe you have something I want.”

“I thought of that.” Brutus looks around, at the murals, the worked lamps, Pompey’s opulence. “You’ve gotten bold - with other people’s belongings.” 

Antony shrugs, lazy, proprietary. “They’re not here to enjoy them.”

“ _Interesting_ approach to leadership you’ve got. Aiming to be the next Sulla?”

“I’m not here for myself.”

Brutus looks up at him, eyebrows slightly raised, but he doesn’t push the point. Instead - “What _did_ you want, then?”

Silence. for a moment. A slow, creeping smile grows on Antony’s face. A little childish, a little vindictive. The weariness evaporating somewhat.

“It would have been funnier if you’d come _when I asked_.” 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Antony shrugs, looking up at the ceiling, “A little funnier with less people dead…” The morbidity doesn’t weigh him down. 

“For the love of-”

“Ask me again.” Antony jumps up to sit on his desk, ignoring the papers, the mess.

“ _What?_ ”

“Ask me why I wanted you.”

Brutus stares at him, exasperated, uncomprehending. “ _I have._ ”

“ _Ask again._ ” Sharp, demanding, a flicker of something unpredictable and dangerous slicing through the room.

Brutus tenses, jaw clenched, eyes suddenly wide. “ _Why’d you summon me,_ then.” 

Antony grins, leaning forward, elbows on knees. “I wanted to know _How Much_.”

He starts laughing almost before he’s gotten the words out. A little hysterical, the release of a not particularly clever joke stored up too long. Brutus’ eyes widen with a slowly dawning, horrified comprehension. 

“I heard you can be _delightfully_ unpredictable,” Antony goes on, “ _Immoral_ , even, if the price is right.”

“ _Fuck you._ ” 

“I mean, that’s the-“

“No. Shut up.” Brutus stands sharply, “How long have you been waiting for that? You haul me back here— You’ve got good people running scared— Just because-“

“I needed entertainment.”

“I’m not entertainment.”

“Oh yes you are.” Antony throws his head back with a sharp bark of a laugh, “You want to kill me, don’t you? You’re wishing it _was_ the rock.”

“ _Shut up._ I’m not taking this from _you_ \- That joke’s five years old. No one talks about that now.”

“Yes they do.”

“Not when it matters.”

“It always matters.” Antony says, harsh, dogged - shadow of Brutus’ long ago admonition on gossip. “I was so _pleased_ when I heard that story about you. The Honourable Man slipping up. Such an _equestrian_ thing to do. You and your poetry and your money lending and your pragmatic immoralities. _You take what you want._ Made me think-”

“Is this because of what I said?” Brutus asks sharply. “Is this because-”

“What do you mean?”

“That day in Athens- It was stupid, alright? I was showing off, it was-”

“What the hell are you going on about?” Antony stares at him, thrown. 

“You don’t remember?” Now Brutus is staring. 

“What the hell, seriously-”

“In the street…” Brutus trails off, going silent. “You don’t remember, do you?”

Antony shrugs, a forced smile obscuring his actual expression. “I don’t remember much of Athens, honestly. _Had too good a time._ ”

“No, you didn’t.” Brutus looks a little too hard at Antony, gaze like a scalpel, and Antony glances away. This was not where he wanted the conversation to go. 

Antony grabs Brutus’ belt, tugging him between his legs, hooking his heels behind Brutus’ knees. He leans in, trying to look like he used to when he was young, when he could get what he wanted for nothing - or what seemed like nothing. “You wouldn’t know a good time if it bit you on the nose.” He teases, lips almost brushing Brutus’.

Brutus freezes, almost leaning in, like its automatic, like he doesn't have to think about it - But then he _does_ think about it and he shoves Antony back, stumbling back. “ _This again?_ ”

Antony laughs, in a great rush of breath, bracing his hands behind him on the desk. He watches Brutus tense, shoulders thrown back, posturing confidence.

“I’m still waiting, you know.” 

“For what?” Brutus asks, like he's forgotten how to breathe. He’s staring at Antony’s mouth.

“For you to take what you want.”

Neither of them remember that conversation precisely. Adolescent agony more detailed than the vocabulary.  
But Antony remembers the challenge. And Brutus remembers the thrum beneath his skin, the terror of not being enough and being seen as less. The terror of a desire he couldn’t, wouldn’t, acknowledge.

Antony stares Brutus down, willing him to move. He could take what he want. He’s gotten _very good_ at taking what he wants, but _that_ isn’t what he wants. He wants someone to do it for him. He wants someone else to take charge. He wants to be right about _something_. 

There are guards outside in the hallway.  
He doesn’t know what to tell them.

Miles away, there’s a man placing all his faith in him.  
He doesn’t even have faith in himself.

There are men screaming for mercy outside on the rock.  
What else could he do? He had to get them to stop screaming at _him_. 

Outside there’s chaos.  
And it’s his.

He looks at Brutus and thinks - _You’re controlled. Take control of me. Just for a minute. Just for this moment. Just for tonight._

_I still might change my mind tomorrow._

“Is this a test?” Brutus says finally, “Are you trying to goad me into something? Are you-”

“No. Well-” Antony laughs. “No. It’s not a test.” He stands up, watching Brutus carefully. “You wanted to, didn’t you?” He asks. “Before you left for Athens. I was right.”

 _He doesn’t know what he’s doing._ Brutus thinks. _He’s terrified._

 _Doesn't matter how much power he has._  
_Doesn't matter how many people he’s killed._  
_We’re both still children, scrambling to be the men we thought we’d be when we were young._

But Brutus doesn’t say that. He wouldn't admit that to anyone. “I’m not that person anymore.” He says instead, cold and brittle, jaw clenched.

“Are you sure?”

“ _Yes._ ” 

“I think you’re exactly the same. I think we both are.” Antony presses. He feels like he’s on the verge of something, anger or some other strong emotion, his self-control thin and tenuous. He watches Brutus’ eyes darken, widening, flushed with anger. He’s still staring at Antony’s mouth. 

Brutus jerks his gaze up, as if he realises his fixation. “What part of this are you getting off on?” He spits, “Is it the power? Getting to _summon_ me somewhere?”

Antony leans back, watching Brutus. His fingers dig into the edge of the desk, muscles tensing. He’s restraining himself, badly. 

“Or is it because I did something _you_ might do. _If you had the wit to think of it_. You think that puts me on your level? You think that makes me the kind of person who’d _prostitute_ myself? What’s your price? Why _did_ Caesar let you orchestrate this nightmare?”

Antony stops breathing, rage mixing poorly with desire, with fear. A fear that he’s _not_ the right man for this job - _not man enough for this job_ \- and he thinks he’ll kill the next person to suggest that.

“If you’re playing a woman for him,” Brutus goes on, savage, “You should have summoned my mother. _You could compare notes._ ” 

Antony’s on his feet without thinking, he hits Brutus, a backhanded blow that should have sent him reeling, but Brutus has muscle he didn’t have before, and the balance of someone who’s been hit so many times he can stand it. There's blood trickling from the corner of his mouth when he recovers, but he rubs it away, unfazed, with the heel of his hand.

They stare at each other, Antony a little stunned, at himself, at Brutus for taking the blow, for twisting a slur against himself, his mother, into something that could cut Antony. 

He’d expected Brutus to fall. 

Antony doesn't brace himself, _and he should have_. Brutus slams Antony back against the wall, forearm pressing against his throat, cutting off his breath. Antony reaches up, grabbing Brutus’ wrist, _however strong Brutus is he’s still much stronger_ , but then Brutus kisses him and he stops caring that he can’t breath. 

It almost doesn't register at first, so violent it could have been another blow. Brutus presses himself against Antony, forcing him up against the wall, biting at Antony’s lip till it bleeds, the taste of their blood mixing. He slides his arm away from Antony’s throat and he braces his hands against the wall on either side of Antony, and Antony's hard now, and he knows Brutus can tell, his thigh pressed between Antony’s legs as he arches against him. 

Antony knots his fingers through Brutus’ hair, tugging his head back, pressing his mouth to his throat, kisses turning to bites, and Brutus gasps following the pull of Antony’s hand.

Antony laughs, he can’t help it, breathless, nipping the corner of Brutus’ jaw. “ _Oh_... I _was_ right”

Brutus tenses, but he doesn’t disagree. He pushes Antony back, pressing another sharp, heated kiss to his mouth, like he has something to prove, like even when he loses control he’s asserting something. He slides his hands to Antony’s shoulders, urging him down, 

Antony grabs Brutus’ hips, switching places with him. He nudges Brutus’ back against the wall, and then he drops to his knees, unbuckling Brutus’ belt.

Brutus stops breathing. He tangles his fingers painfully through Antony's hair, tugging him closer. Antony looks up at him, smile sharp, the remnant of his laughter in every breath he takes, and Brutus’ fingers tighten in his hair, “ _Don’t._ ” He says, when Antony takes in a breath to speak, fierce, and hungry, and still a little angry. “ _Don’t say anything._ ”

So Antony doesn’t. Brutus takes control and Antony lets him. He doesn’t hesitate or tease. He braces his hands on either side of Brutus’ hips, taking Brutus in so deep he can feel the head of his cock against the back of his throat. He lets Brutus hold him there till he feels like he’ll pass out for want of breath, pulling back against Brutus’ grip, tears threatening. 

Brutus’ head falls back against the wall with a low groan, watching Antony. 

A deep satisfaction settles over Antony. He knows how to do this. He knows how to give people what they want, how to make them lose control. He presses his tongue against the base of Brutus’ cock, pulling back slightly, enough to breathe. Brutus relaxes his grip in Antony's hair slightly, giving him room, letting him set his own rhythm. Gasping softly, Brutus bites back a whimper when Antony wraps his fingers around the base of his cock 

It doesn’t take long. Antony does exactly what Brutus wants. And Brutus responds exactly the way Antony wants him to. He chokes back a cry, fingers tightening sharply in Antony’s hair, when he comes. Antony swallows around him, trembling slightly, and then Brutus’ grip slackens and Antony pulls away.

He sits back, finally taking in a breath. He watches Brutus slide to the floor, eyes half shut, not really conscious. Antony throws his head back, closes his eyes, and breathes, self satisfied, relaxed for a moment. 

It’s getting dark outside. The street’s gone silent. 

Antony gets up, ignoring his knees protesting, finding a still half full cup of wine on his desk and downing it. When he looks back, Brutus is watching him, head resting heavily on the wall behind him. 

Brutus tries something that looks like a smile, a little wan, a strange mix of ease and self conscious discomfort. “Were you planning on doing that?”

Antony shrugs, sitting down on the floor across from Brutus, a little space between them. “I don’t know. I don’t really remember what I was thinking, this time a week ago.” 

Brutus doesn’t say anything to that. His head drops forward, heavy, tired. 

Antony tugs lightly at the sleeve of Brutus’ tunic, feeling the fabric. “Did you think I was after your money?” He asks.

Brutus shrugs, a believable impression of ease. “Possibly.”

Antony examines the hem between his fingers. “You’re never as understated as you think you’re being.”

“Compared to you….” Brutus murmurs, half asleep, and then he pulls away slightly, crossing his legs, staring at the wall. He takes in a breath, then bites his tongue.

“Figured that’s the pitch Cicero would make."Antony goes on blithely, "Not unbelievable, That I'd be out to get your ill-got gains.” He sees Brutus tense infinitesimally. “What was that?”

“ _What?_ ” Brutus asks sharply, expression blank and forced.

“I’ve annoyed you somehow.”

“As if that’s new…” Brutus tilts his head back against the wall, eyes closed, “As if you _care._ ” 

“No, what was it?” 

Brutus presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, as though he has a headache, or the light is paining him, ignoring the question. “You should be getting back to work. _I should be going._ ” 

“What the fuck-“

“ _What?_ ” Brutus pulls his hands away, staring at Antony, “You got what you wanted-"

"Didn't seem like it was just me-"

" _Fine._ But I’m not going to laze around here with you while you ignore your own problems and make jokes about-“ He breaks off, mouth tightening. He fixes his gaze somewhere else. 

“Gossip sticks, doesn’t it.” Antony says after a moment, watching him.

Brutus exhales, then sits up sharply, looking straight ahead. “I don't care what they think. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Nothing wrong?”

“It’s not like _you_.” Brutus’ expression twists, bitter, angry, and suddenly unfamiliar. “But everyone looks at me like I’m not a man for doing it. Like I’m less. Like _they’re better_. Like they’ve never done the same things. Five men in a house and… Look at you. _Look at the mess you’ve made._ Who cares about five men?” He breaks off, faltering. He presses his forehead against his hands, digging in. “No. _No, that isn’t it._ ” And then, so softly Antony half thinks he imagined it - “ _I’m sorry._ ”

Brutus breaths, painfully tense. “Of course I want money. _Of course_ I’ll do what it takes to get it. I do what I have to, to get where I want to be.”

“Where do you want to be?” Antony watches the muscles of Brutus’ back stiffen as he breaths, voice almost inaudible, as if he doesn’t want to interrupt. 

They don’t talk like this anymore. Maybe they never did. They didn't have problems like this in childhood. But _this_ Brutus feels familiar to Antony, the unreserved, sometimes vicious, always vehement man who knows what he wants, _and doesn’t_. 

“I want to be capable.” Brutus says. “I want to have the means to _act_ without _hesitating_ ”

“You? Do something without thinking?”

“Without _hesitating._ ” Brutus corrects him harshly. “I don’t want to have wait for the means, for other people to license me. When I decide to move, I want to _move._ ”

Antony doesn’t have anything to say to that. He knows what that feels like.

“Acting like it’s immoral…” Brutus says after a moment, trailing off, sentences fragmented like he's only speaking half his mind, “As if it's about the _money._ ” He looks up at Antony, suddenly fierce, “They wouldn’t care if I did ten times worse a thing to a hundred more men. Because it's _money_ , it’s dishonourable. Cicero- _God_ you’re not wrong you know… _You're not wrong_. The plebs still put flowers on Catilina’s grave. _They still_ -” 

“I know.” Antony says quietly. Maybe he does. Brutus is oddly compelling, even fractured, barely pausing to make sense. 

“ _I’m going to do this right._ ” Brutus says suddenly, emphatic. He holds Antony’s gaze for a moment, and then, abruptly, he pulls back within himself. His breath slows, he glances away to the window. A minute passes in silence, that strange, vivid person retreating a little more every second. “I’m going to go.” He says finally. He doesn’t move.

“Alright.” Antony stifles a smile. 

Brutus’ gaze flicks back, catching the end of Antony’s grin. “ _Shut up_." His expression is inscrutable, eye’s paling to their usual colour. He stands up. “Don’t think I approve of any of this. Don’t think I think you’re _alright._ ” 

Antony looks away, as if he doesn’t hear. He believes Brutus, to a point. “I think I was more than ‘alright’.” He says, with affected humor. 

"Try to clean this up.” Brutus says, but Antony thinks he _almost_ made him laugh. "Try not to make it worse.”

“I am.” Antony stares him down. 

“No, you’re not.” Brutus stretches, rolling his shoulders back, muscles sore. “Try harder.” 

Antony rolls his eyes, refusing to get up. “ _Fuck you._ ”

Something almost like a smile catches at the corner of Brutus’ mouth, not exactly unkind. “Clean it up first.”

“Is that a promise?”

Brutus doesn’t respond. He tugs his clothes back in place efficiently, starts for the door, but then hesitates for a moment, looking back at Antony. He looks uncomfortable. Uncomfortable or even afraid. He looks as though he’s making up his mind, forcibly, to not regret this. To not attempt some last ditch effort to wipe out that intimacy. 

Antony wonders which is worse in Brutus’ mind - The things he said, or the desire he admitted. He wonders if it’s the first time Brutus has done something like this. He's not sure he'd believe it if he said it was. 

In the end, Brutus doesn’t say anything else. He leaves silently. 

Antony stares at the pile of papers on his desk for a while, still sitting on the ground. Someone knocks on the study door and he startles, shouting at them ferociously to come back later. He lies down on the marble dropping his head to the floor a little too hard. He stares at the ceiling, listening to the oppressive silence, wondering if this changes anything, wondering if it makes anything better. 

He can’t decide.

He gets up, goes to his desk, calmly rips Brutus’ name off the bottom of a list of a dozen others, and throws it into the brazier next to him.


	5. Pharsalus

The world isn’t the same, the next time they meet. 

They’re not the same.

The battle’s over.  
The war’s not finished yet. 

They’ve both had to occupy personae they’re unfamiliar with. Statesmen. Soldiers. Leaders. Followers. 

Pompey lost. Brutus _ran_. 

Then, three days later, suddenly, there he is. Clothes clean, no sign of wounds, walking around the camp at Caesar’s side _like he's been there the whole time._

Antony has few virtues. Antony doesn't really give a damn what other people do. But _that_ gets under his skin and burns. 

All well and good for Brutus to preen like that in the city.  
Just fine for him to be an arrogant, over educated freak holding it over everyone else like a sword of Damocles.  
Could even be a little fun, sometimes, to watch him make Cicero squirm - Unwilling to back down, to change his opinions just because his interlocutor was _Pater Patriae._

_That was fine._  
But Brutus _wasn’t a soldier_.  
He didn’t belong here.  
He didn’t deserve Caesar’s interest, attention, trust. He hadn’t earned it. He hadn’t bled for it. He’d slipped away into the night, avoiding war, the price of his own decisions. 

_You going to be that arrogant? Better fucking live up to it._  
_Thought you were better than this._  
_You love to talk about the etymology of aristocrats. Better shut up about it next time I’m in hearing._

Antony knows there was a letter. He’d seen Caesar reading it. And he knows Brutus is there by invitation. He must have said some _damn fine_ things. 

Antony had tried to read the tightly written page over Caesar’s shoulder, he’d tried to get at the paper, he’d even gone so far as to ask what it contained - But Caesar’s flat grey stare shamed him, and all he’d gotten was, “He’s very polite. Manners like his mother.” Antony couldn’t even rally himself to joke about that. 

So. There they all are. And Brutus and Caesar are walking back into the camp (gone all day, riding in the countryside) and Antony sits outside the command tent, watching them slowly wander up the low hill.

The sun is right behind them, details blurred, and for a moment Antony wonders which of them is which, and thinks about staled jokes and whether there is any truth to them, and wonders if _that’s_ what was in that letter. Brutus always has some currency to open doors. 

Antony pulls back the tent flap for Caesar when they reach the hilltop. Brutus barely looks at Antony. There's a tightness to his features that Antony can't read as he follows Caesar into the tent, brushing past Antony, assumptive.

It's blistering hot. Standing near the door Antony watches the sweat bead on the back of Brutus’ neck. Caesar leans over the map table, pushing aside unnecessary papers.

“How sure are you?” He asks Brutus, staring fixedly at one point on the map.

“Very sure.” It doesn't really sound like Brutus at all - restrained to a breaking point. "I don’t doubt it.”

Antony lets the tent door fall shut. He comes over to the table, following Caesar’s gaze. 

“What’s this about?”

Brutus hesitates, looking to Caesar. “I’m not sure that…”

But Caesar shrugs, either not noticing or not caring, “He thinks he knows where Pompey is.”

Antony can't help it. He laughs. “You’re going to believe him?”

His derision dies when Caesar looks up. Antony shifts, uncomfortable.

"I think he’s right.” Caesar says.

“ _His uncle’s still out there._ ” Antony presses. 

Brutus is silent. He fixes his gaze at the edge of the table, like he's trying, with utmost concentration, not to exist.

“Yes. _And he chose to come here._ ” Caesar puts a hand on Brutus’ shoulder as he comes around the table. He unrolls another, more detailed map and spreads it out on the table. “I’m not Sulla.” He says, _campaign slogan of the month_. “My enemies are safe if they surrender. They can earn my friendship.”

Antony bites his tongue, blood pounding in his ears. 

Caesar hasn't moved his hand.

Antony can't really pay attention to what they are saying.

“Think he’ll have gone this way…”

“-reports if he really has.”

“-not without-”

Brutus is tense, shoulders, spine, straight to the soles of his feet. He holds himself carefully, like a little thing might make him fall. His shoulder is pressed against Caesar’s as he leans over the map, head bowed, and Antony can see Caesar smile. More than triumphant, _affectionate._

Their voices overlap, similar in pitch, in tone, precise.

“Your mother will be pleased.

“Didn’t do it for her sake.” Brutus, still detached, still _right there_ next to Caesar.

“Neither did I.”

Antony doesn't wait for permission or instructions. Quietly, quickly, he leaves the tent.


	6. Pharsalus contd.

Antony goes looking for Brutus, later, after it’s grown dark, after the watchfires have been lit. He can see a lamp glowing dimly in Brutus’ tent, flicker of his shadow as he crosses in front of it. 

Most people would be asleep. Not Brutus. He’s not one to let a war, defeat, defection get in the way of _what's really important._ Pages of Polybius spread across the desk. Annotations. Little corrections. Let’s see how to suck the marrow out of this and _repurpose it._

Antony’s still in armour. Brutus _isn’t_. Whatever he looked like a week ago, Brutus now looks like he’s never worn armour in his life. And Antony wonders - How quickly did he ditch it when he _ran?_

Jarring, for a moment, because - Isn’t this how it used to be? Midnight, lights out, and here he goes, sneaking through the dark to talk. Seven, eight years old - That’s how it was. And it’s an unpleasant taste, a reminder Antony would rather not have. They’re such different people now - Why can't the memories be different too? 

He goes in. Brutus startles, settles, stares. A little of his guard goes down - Like he thought it might be someone else, like Antony is a relief. 

Mouth dry, Antony stops. He thinks, he’s almost sure, he’s angry. This is what anger feels like- The urge to tear another person apart- skin them, get underneath, find the rawest part. That's what anger feels like. 

Brutus slides the papers together, smooth, discreet, out of the way. Compartmentalise — That’s how you do it. Blood, hell, and war come morning, but over here, we can have it our way. Best way for the arrogant, to be that self controlled, so controlled it looks nauseating. That’s how you write a book, translate a text, finish an epitome, in a war. _You know what's important_. Yes. Brutus was very sure he knew what was important. 

Brutus stands, polite. He tries a smile - _Sorry about earlier_. He seems to say. _I haven’t forgotten the last time_. 

That's almost worse, Antony thinks, contradictory, unpleasant. It would be easier if it was only one thing at a time. 

“I’m glad you got away.” Brutus says, stilted. “I didn’t have a chance to say, before. When it happened. I’m glad you got out of the city. I’m glad you’re alright.”

He doesn't sound like himself. Or rather, he doesn't sound like the person he was that afternoon. It sounds like he’s trying to drag something up, from so far back he can barely recall, but remembers that it was important _then_. 

“You can't do that.” Antony says. “No blank slate here. You can’t bribe your way out of this with me.”

And Brutus stumbles, poise faltering. He looks younger, for a moment (no one’s dared talk to him like that in so long), and his words dry up.

“You could have stayed out of it. If you didn’t want to fight-”

“That isn’t-”

“Do you think you can treat everything like that?” Antony asks, “ _Just business. Another transaction. Another price tag._ You said you were going to do this right.”

Brutus stops breathing, all the colour draining from his face. “ _You don’t know what you’re talking about._ ”

“You can’t say that this time. _This isn’t your area._ Everything else, _fine_ , but this one thing here - I know more than you. _I’m better than you_.” 

“Grow up, _will you please_. This isn't about-”

“I heard you in there. _You were so happy to sell yourself._ ”

“I wasn’t-” 

"So happy to give him what he wanted.”

“What if it’s what I wanted?” 

Antony stops, staring, thrown for a moment. “ _What?_ ” 

Brutus straightens, self conscious but very close to hiding it, defensive, determined, “I’m not _proud_ of it. It’s not disinterested. It _is_ personal. But I’m not lying anymore. I’m not making nice. I’m not pretending to be what I’m not-”

“Not pretending?” Antony stares at him, at the finely woven fabric of his tunic - right colour but no soldier ever wore linen that fine - the scattered ink stains on his fingers, the thin leather cord around his neck, the too bright silver fascinum. “You shouldn’t be wearing that.”

“ _Why the fuck not._ ”

“You’re not a soldier.” 

“ _I’m here aren’t I?_ ”

“No, you’re not. _Not really_. If you were _really here_ you’d have seen things through. You’re a coward.” 

“Don’t say that. _Don’t fucking say that_. ”

“ _Why?_ Does that hurt? Do you think I'm wrong?”

“ _You are._ ”

“What you did doesn’t get to add up that way. _Too late to change my mind now._ ”

“Do you even know what I did?”

“You deserted, you turned tail, you couldn’t keep your word. People like you _kill themselves_ rather than do that.”

“I’m not dying for Pompey.”

“But you’ll fight for him? Half-way not all the way? Like the way you treat me?”

“ _Shut. Up._ ”

“Give me a better reason or _admit you’re a coward._ ”

“I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“Then you're a coward.”

“ _He killed my father._ ” 

Sharp, too loud, the words break from Brutus with the charged weight of a long silence. And Antony realises - He’s never heard him talk about it. _Not even when it happened_. Eight or nine years old- Antony barely seven - and he’s never seen Brutus mourn. Not in any way that wasn’t scripted, choreographed, and blank. Like a persona fitted to his skull and nailed it in place. 

Antony is silent, thrown, but Brutus doesn’t stop - “I thought I could do the right thing.” He says, vicious, like a knife cutting two ways, injuring himself for lashing out at another. "Wouldn't even talk to him in the street, but for the right cause? For my country? _Yes._ I’d follow him to war. I’m not _good_ at impersonal. _I know I pretend. I know what people say._ But that’s not what I’m good at. And Caesar asked me and I just… I-” Brutus breaks off, he’s flushed, almost feverish looking - “I didn't run because I was _afraid_. I joined him because I thought he stood a chance of winning. Without that shield in front of him… _He’ll always be a butcher_ and I’ll always be the son of the man he murdered.”

For a moment Antony thinks he’ll go on, but it’s as if he’s run out of breath, falling entirely silent, not even looking at Antony anymore. 

“If I’d done something like that,” Antony says after a moment, "You’d rip me apart.”

“Probably.”

“You’re a hypocrite.”

Brutus looks up at him. He’s pale, trembling slightly. Antony can’t decide if it’s weakness or rage. “I’m not saying it’s good- I'm not saying I did the _right thing_ -"

“So? You made a choice.” 

“I wasn’t- I didn’t realise that you would be-” Brutus breaks off. “You’re right that this is your area. You’re right this is what you’re good at. I’m not a soldier. _Not yet_. But this war wasn’t going to…” He hesitates, struggling, “I’ll do better next time. Next time I fight I’ll— It’ll be for something real. It won’t be the lesser of two evils, it will be a real fight or _nothing_.”

“What do you think that looks like?”

Brutus glances away, down at the table, at the mess of papers. “I don’t know. But it isn’t this.”

“ _Let me know when you find it._ ”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s never _better_.” Antony says, savage, “It’s never _right._ This is what I'm good at, this is what I love, and I'm telling you - _it’s hell._ ”

“What should I have done?”

“ _Stayed home_.”

“I couldn’t do that.”

“Then pull yourself together _and shut up about it till you do._ ” 

“Pretty sure that’s not your line. Pretty sure you don’t get to say that to me.”

“ _No one else is going to_.”

Brutus stops. He’s trembling again, pale as bone. He swallows hard, takes a shallow breath, barely letting his chest rise, and then - “I think you should go.”

“Why?”

Brutus braces his hands on the table, focussed on the edge, breathing carefully like he’s trying to rid himself of emotion or pain. “It’s getting late. _It’s already late_. Go to bed, why don't you?”

Antony doesn’t move, and Brutus goes around him, irritated, brusk, tense from his spine to the soles of his feet. He leans over and blows out one of the lamps, wincing as he does so, a violent, pained motion brutally restrained.

“What was that?”

Brutus straightens, the shadows of the one remaining lamp sharply lining his face. “What?”

“Are you hurt?”

“Go to bed, Antony.”

“ _Are you hurt?_ ”

“Go to bed.”

“Fucking hell will you just-” Antony reaches out, grabbing Brutus’ shoulder and Brutus’ face contorts sharply with pain, breath stopped. When Antony pulls his hand back, there’s blood on his fingers, the sleeve of Brutus’ tunic soaked through.

“ _What happened?_ ”

Brutus doesn’t say anything.

“Didn’t Caesar-”

“I have it under control.”

“ _No, you don’t._ ”

Carefully, slowly, Brutus rolls his shoulder back. He takes in a close, short breath. “See? I’m fine.” 

“I'm calling a surgeon.”

“ _Don’t_.”

“Or what?”

Brutus doesn’t say anything.

“Go sit on the bed.”

With some considerable effort, Brutus says - “I would really rather not.”

“Oh come on, _man up_ and show me where it hurts.”

“ _Fuck you_.” 

“ _If you’re good_.”

“Cinae-”

Antony cuts him off. “You really want to go there right now?”

Brutus breathes in sharply through his nose, biting his tongue. “ _Fine._ Hand me your knife.”

“What?”

“Your knife. I can’t-” He gestures at the collar of his tunic, “I’ll have to cut it.” 

“Do you want me to-”

“ _No_.” 

Brutus takes the knife from Antony and, imprecise with pain and unused to the angle, cuts down from the collar of his tunic enough to pull the sleeve away, and then the haphazard bandage. “See?” He says shortly once the linen is clear. “It’s not infected. It’s _fine_.”

“Fine isn’t-” Antony trails off. The wound is neat enough, _as arrow wounds go_ , but Brutus is wrong. Besides the blood, it isn’t healing, angry, discoloured, days later and still fresh looking, as if someone had torn into it again, and again. “Did you do that?”

“Do what?”

Antony lights the second lamp again, tilting Brutus’ head out of the way so the shadow won’t fall over the wound. “How about you stop being _whatever this is_ and tell me what’s wrong here?”

Brutus starts to speak but then stops, breath cutting out as Antony gingerly presses at the edges of the wound. “It- There’s still…” 

Antony stops, staring, “There’s still part of the arrow shaft there.”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t they-”

“There isn’t any _they_. I did it myself.“

“ _Why didn’t you tell someone?_ ”

“I don’t want anyone touching me. I don’t want anyone-”

“Is your paranoia about penetration so extreme that-”

“ _Will you shut up, not everything is about sex._ ”

Silence for a moment. They stare at each other, lamplight flickering, unideal for this kind of work.

“I can’t-” Brutus breaks off, struggling. “I can’t let anyone near me to…” He breathes in, slowly, working for calm. 

“Ok- We’ll just…” Antony gingerly settles a hand on Brutus' good shoulder, struggling for calm himself, “I’ll try to-”

Brutus closes his eyes, muscles tensing like he wants to lash out. “I don't think-” Sharp, short breath, biting his tongue. “I don’t think I can let you help.”

“You know- I didn’t think you were this stupid.”

“It’s not _stupidity_ -”

“Yes it is. Come on, you don’t have a choice here- We have to get it out. You can’t do it yourself. At least with me-”

“ _What?_ ”

Antony tries a grin, head tilted to the side, “I know you don’t always mind me getting close.” 

Brutus' jaw clenches, he looks down at the floor. “Wouldn’t even let my mother help with this kind of thing when I was a child.”

“Had a lot of arrow wounds then did you?”

“Sliver of glass. I’d try to stay still, but the moment anyone took my foot in their hands or tried to hold the cut open enough to probe for the shard- I couldn’t do it.”

Antony can picture that perfectly - Brutus has been vehement, volatile since childhood. If he didn’t want to do something he wouldn’t. Luck, really, that _what he wanted_ usually aligned with what he was _supposed_ to do.

“What did they do?”

“Sent for opium. Knocked me out.”

“I don’t have any opium.”

“I’m shocked.” A fatigued, deadpan humour creeping through.

“Are you laughing at me?”

“A little. Maybe.”

Antony takes another look at the wound, considering. “Alright. Stay here. I’m going for hot water and fresh bandages, and then-” He smiles slightly, working to soften his tone, “We'll see if we can’t get you to handle this like an adult.”

“ _Fuck. You._ ” But Brutus stays put regardless.

When Antony comes back, balancing a bowl of water, rolls of linen tucked under his arm, Brutus has gotten the rest of his tunic off, stripped to the waist, and sat down on the bed. He looks sick. fingers curled under the edge of the frame with a white knuckle grip. 

Antony sets the supplies on the ground by the bed - “Lie down.” When Brutus doesn’t move Antony puts a hand to his good shoulder, lightly pushing him back. “You know the only thing you'll actually regret about this is if you make a fool of yourself pretending to be a stoic instead of the genuine article.” 

Brutus’ jaw clenches, biting back a response, but he lies down. He stays still as Antony cleans the area around the wound. He’s barely breathing, fingers clenched in the folds of the blanket under him. When Antony presses his fingertips to the edges of the wound, very carefully trying to open the cut enough to see what he’s doing, a ripple of tension flashes through Brutus’ body and he twists away, feet digging into the bed. Antony flattens his hand against the middle of his chest, keeping him from getting up. 

“I can’t.” Tightly restrained panic in his voice, Brutus stares up at Antony, muscles straining slightly. “I can’t, I’m sorry I can’t-” 

“Yes you can. You have to. Look at me- There isn't another option.”

A high, uncontrollable whine breaks from Brutus, he screws his eyes shut, trembling slightly, and Antony shifts to kneel next to him on the bed. “You need to stay still.” 

Brutus breaths in shallowly, relaxing just enough that his spine is flat against the bed again.

Antony picks up one of the lamps, trying to get a better view of what he is doing. “This would be a lot easier if you'd let me send for-”

“No.”

“Not a doctor but someone to-”

“ _No._ ”

“I’m not writing the letter to your mother if you die.”

“ _Not your job is it_.” Brutus bites out. 

Antony gets up and pulls the chair over to the bed, setting the lamp down on it as close to Brutus’ shoulder as he can. He picks up the pile of bandages and a fine, narrow pair of forceps. Brutus immediately tenses, struggling up, braced on his good hand. He breathes in, like he’s about to say something but then thinks better of it, eyes dilated. Antony doesn’t move for a moment, just looking at him. Brutus lies back down. 

“Have you done this before?”

“Not this exactly.”

“But do you actually know what you're doing?”

“If I said no would you actually let me find a surgeon?”

Brutus hesitates, barely. “No.”

“Then shut up.” Antony kneels next to him again, bracing the thumb and forefinger of his left hand around the wound, "Match my breathing. Just pick a point on the ceiling and breathe.”

Brutus takes in a breath, and then another, tense to a breaking point under Antony’s hands as he very cautiously edges the forceps into the wound. Brutus gasps sharply, and Antony presses his forearm across Brutus’ chest, tilting his head slightly to get a better angle as he catches the edge of the broken shaft in the forceps and starts to slide it free. “Keep breathing. I’ve got it…” The splinter slowly edges a little further out, Antony can just see bone. The arrow had gone neatly under Brutus’ collarbone, narrowly missing a break. “Breathe.” He says again.

Brutus’ chest rises and falls under Antony’s arm, struggling to keep an even pace, muscles tensing.  
The forceps slip slightly, jerking and Brutus’ breath speeds up, hyperventilating as Antony gingerly readjusts and the first half of the splinter comes out. An agonised sound catches at the back of Brutus’ throat with each sharp breath, but Antony keeps his hand firmly on his shoulder, and a moment later, the rest of the splinter comes clear. 

Brutus throws his head back against the bed, eyes screwed shut, taking in heavy, uneven breaths. 

Antony sets the forceps down on the chair. He drags his fingers through his hair, feeling his own heart rate slowing. “See?” He says after a moment, with a kind of practiced, professional calm belied by residual adrenaline. “You did fine.” 

Brutus laughs, barely audible, strung out, and Antony nudges him up again, grabbing the bandaging, “Come on.” He says, “Let me get you cleaned up.” 

“I can do that- You don't have to-”

“At this angle? Just sit still…”

Brutus' breathing eases a little more. He lets Antony run the bandages over his shoulder, across his chest, around his back. He watches Antony tuck the edge of the bandage in place and hesitantly rolls his shoulder back slightly. “You’re good at that.” 

“Of course I am.” Antony sets the rest of the bandaging aside, “Try not to do anything to extreme with it for a bit. That’ll still take some time to heal.”

“I know.”

“ _Fantastic_. But you’re the one who thought it was a good idea to do this on your own, so sit through the beginner’s class to self care _would you?_ ”

Brutus eyes widen and he almost laughs, the colour coming back to his face a little more. “Do you usually do this kind of thing for The Enemy?”

“Is that what you are?” 

Silence.

“I don’t know.” Brutus runs his thumb across the edge of the bandaging, the neat precise edge where Antony had tucked it in. “Depends on what happens next, I suppose.” He pushes his hair out of his face, sweat streaked, trying to compose himself. 

Antony leans back on his hands at the foot of the bed, watching him, watching the dull glint of the lamplight off Brutus’ fascinum. “Where did you get that?” He asks after a moment. “Did you have someone go out and buy it for you?” 

“My mother gave it to me.” He’s not looking at Antony.

“ _Bit unusual._ ”

“She said it was my father’s.”

Silence for a moment. Brutus gingerly lies down, eyes closed but not asleep. 

“Does she always just say ‘your father’?” Antony asks.

“What else would she call him?” Brutus doesn’t open his eyes.

“She never uses a name?”

“She says my father. _She doesn't need to specify_.” 

“Because it doesn’t matter or-”

“ _No._ ”

“Doesn’t it bug you?”

Brutus pushes himself up with some effort, glaring, “ _What do you think?_ ”

“I’m just-”

“What? Curious? It’s not interesting. It’s _not_ a curiosity. _It doesn’t matter_.” 

“If you’re going to make decisions like this… Look- Even if he is _who he’s supposed to be_ \- Did you know him enough for it to matter?”

Brutus straightens, aiming at intimidation - and on anyone else it might have worked. “I know who I am.” He says. “ _That’s enough_.”

“Alright.” Antony says quietly, meeting Brutus’ gaze. “Alright, that’s fair.”

“Thank you.” Dry, sarcastic, Brutus almost sounds normal again. He lies back down, his breath intentionally even. 

Antony crosses his legs under him, watching the lamplight shadows on Brutus’ face. “As long as you do know.”

Brutus is silent. For a moment, Antony thinks he may have fallen asleep, but then -“Aren’t you going to go?”

“Do you want me to leave?” Antony asks. 

“Do you want to stay?”

Silence. Antony reaches out and slides his fingers around Brutus’ ankle. He feels Brutus tense slightly, then relax. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t pull away. 

“Do you think it gets easier?” Antony asks.

“What?”

“Don’t you sometimes think that whoever we were when we were children would hate who we are now?”

Brutus crosses his good arm behind his head, looking at Antony - at his armour, at his scars, at his weariness. “I don’t know." He sounds like he'd rather not talk about it, "Didn’t you always want to be a soldier?”

“I’m not just a soldier.”

“No.” Brutus says finally, “You’re not.”

The lamplight flickers down, oil running out.

“I thought I had it, a couple of years ago.” Brutus says when Antony remains silent. “The right path, a good persona, an idea of what success could look like. I don’t feel like that anymore.” 

That admission should have been an unbearable intimacy. It wasn’t. Brutus doesn't stop himself. Antony doesn't move. The first lamp goes out.

“I might still be angry with you, tomorrow.” Antony says, a strange lassitude creeping through him, at odds with his words.

“I know.” 

“If you betray anyone like that ever again,” Antony says, "I don’t care how good your reasons, I’ll kill you.’

“I know.” Brutus twists his ankle in Antony’s grip, like he’s testing it, but he still doesn’t pull away. “I’m not going to change how I act towards you,” He says, “Not if you keep wasting yourself.”

“I know.” Antony says.

“Whatever this is stays here. Whatever happens next, whatever sides we’re on.”

“Yes.”

“Alright.” 

The second lamp flickers, falters, and goes out. Antony shifts, tugging the blanket up from the foot of the bed. He pulls it over Brutus and lies down next to him.

Not the first time they’ve done this, but the first time in a long time. The first time since they were children - falling asleep together while the adults talked late into the night, or sneaking into each other’s rooms and talking themselves into unconsciousness. 

Nothing’s better. Nothing’s fixed. They both still have to live with themselves, with each other, but for now, in the dark, weariness wins out, and they fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding fascina - There's a broad range of varieties worn by ancient Romans, and they were fairly ubiquitous in a number of forms, but there do appear to be varieties that were more usually worn by soldiers, particularly the manus fica, so that's what I had in mind when writing this, but they may very well be more commonplace than I've seen - So. Just be aware, as always, there's a little narrative license going on here.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [λευκόπους](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22538065) by [himbostratus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/himbostratus/pseuds/himbostratus)




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